Kerr on Traditional Sugar Planting
From Thomas Kerr ("Planter, Antigua"
it says on the title page) A Practical
Treatise on the Cultivation of the Sugar Cane, and the Manufacture of Sugar
(SB231.K4),
which was published in 1851, 13 years after the final abolition of slavery
in the British Caribbean. Kerr's intention was to improve West Indian techniques
in all stages of sugar production as one way to offset the effects of the
emancipation of the labour force; but I'm interested in his description
of common practice. First, parts of his description of the cane plant.
The sugar cane... is a plant of the most simple
structure, being one of the graminiferous tribe of vegetables; in other
words, a gigantic grass. The form of its stem is cylindrical, and it varies
in length from six to fifteen feet; it is usually from one and a-half to
two inches in diameter, and it is divided into joints, the length of which
vary from three to seven inches. Each joint is composed of a number of
small hexagonal tubes, which lie parallel to each other and to the axis
of the stem; these have no communication with each other, and terminate
at the spot where the joints are united, at which place they come into
contact with a complete network of minute vessels. This vascular labyrinth
seems designed both to preserve the communication with the cells in the
next joint, to convey and elaborate the nutriment required by the germ
or bud which is situate at each of these intersections, and by which the
plant is propagated, and to communicate with the leaf which is produced
simultaneously with the joint, which it encircles and adheres to until
it is matured, and by the agency of which the ligneous fibre, and the cellular
and vascular tissues are formed. The points of juncture between the joints
are marked externally by a dark coloured narrow ring encircling the cane,
being the part to which the inferior termination of the leaf had been attached.
This cincture is bordered by a row of small circular spots, which produce
radicles during germination, and at one portion of its circumference the
embryo bud is situated. The position of this bud alternates in successive
joints to exactly opposite sides of the stem....
...[When] the cane is growing rapidly, its juice
contains but little sugar, that substance being required as fast as it
is secreted, but when the growth becomes slower as the plant matures, the
juice increases in sweetness until it arrives at its maximum density....
The cane is propagated by cuttings, which grow very
readily, the part used for that purpose being the upper termination of
the stem, which includes a series of short, semiformed joints, each of
which is furnished with an "eye" or bud. This portion of the cane, not
being matured, contains very little saccharine matter, so that no loss
of sugar occurs by using it for plants; but every joint of the stem is
a perfect plant, and will grow readily, and certainly.
The old system of cane cultivation is too well known
to need description, but for the sake of comparison, I shall briefly advert
to it.
The land under cultivation was generally divided
into three or more nearly equal portions, according to the desire of the
manager, to ratoon once, or oftener; and soon after the termination of
the sugar making season, the preparation of the portion of land to be planted
in the beginning of the succeeding year was commenced, by putting a gang
of negroes with hoes, to break up the surface. This was generally done
in a very superficial manner, as the labourer naturally exerted all his
ingenuity to give his work the appearance of being well performed,
with as little exertion on his part as possible. The size of the cane-hole
was defined, by measuring squares of three, three and a-half, or four feet,
according to the fancy of the Planter, with a line, and marking off the
spaces with small sticks; but generally, the shape of the old cane-hole
was sufficient to direct the labourers in forming the new one, which was
accomplished by digging about sixteen or twenty inches square out of the
centre of each space, leaving a hard broad border of undisturbed earth,
surrounding the hole formed. The earth removed by the operation being arranged
on the one side of the hole, formed banks which presented parallel lines
of newly turned earth, resting on a hard and unbroken base, and between
these lines were the newly formed holes, separated from each other by a
bar of undisturbed soil, called the "distance" or "cross-hole bank", which
was covered with loose soil, by farther deepening the cane-hole at the
subsequent operation, called "cross-holing". This operation entirely removed
the surface soil from the hole, so that the hard unbroken subsoil was exposed
at the bottom; the surface of the field, when finished, presenting the
appearance of a chess-board.
Although the earth was but imperfectly broken up
by this process, it was a very labourious one, particularly in stiff soils,
and where the roots of the recently cut canes interlaced the earth in all
directions. In wet weather, also, the earth adhering to, and clogging the
hoes in a very troublesome manner, they required continual scraping, which
consumed considerable time, and in dry weather the ground was so exceedingly
tough and hard, from never having been perfectly tilled, that very little
progress could be made. In general each person would dig from fifty to
one hundred cane-holes in a day....
The manure, partly made up in pens in the fields,
to which it was to be applied, and partly carted from the homestead, and
deposited in the intervals between the fields, was usually distributed
with baskets, and placed on the spaces left between the holes before cross-holing....
The earlier the operation of digging the cane-holes
could be performed, the more creditable to the judgment and exertion of
the Planter, although this depended, in some degree, on the period of the
crop being finished, on the time occupied in preparing the land for planting
provisions for the support of the slaves, or for sale, and, since the abolition
of slavery, in a very great measure on the number of labourers who could
be procured.
From the completion of the operation of "holing",
till the canes completely covered the surface, constant weeding was required,
and large gangs were continually employed. No other method of weeding than
hand-hoeing was possible, from the peculiar formation of the angular holes
and banks. In fact, the whole system, from the breaking up of the first
clod of earth, to the rolling of the hogshead of sugar into the waggon,
appeared to have been expressly contrived for employing the greatest possible
amount of human labour. The large amount of capital, therefore, required
for the labourers, rendered sugar planting, except under peculiarly favourable
circumstances, very far from being so remunerative as is generally supposed....
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